Bring Her Back (2025) marks the sophomore feature from Danny and Michael Philippou, the YouTuber-turned-director duo who made a splash with their debut Talk to Me. While that film had its uneven moments, it at least injected some energy and fresh perspective into the horror genre. Bring Her Back doubles down on the worst tendencies of that film—mainly its obsession with grief as the only emotional register—while stripping away the thrill and kinetic verve that made Talk to Me at least intermittently exciting.
Bring Her Back is a film that feels like it’s chasing trends rather than leading them. The Philippous clearly want to be mentioned alongside filmmakers like Ari Aster or Julia Ducournau, directors who’ve melded emotional trauma with gnarly, confrontational imagery. But Bring Her Back doesn’t bring that level of vision. It’s yet another grief-driven horror story masquerading as something more daring than it actually is.
The film centers on siblings Andy (played by Billy Barratt) and Piper (played by Sora Wong), who are thrust into the foster care system after the death of their father. Their new home, headed by foster mother Laura (played by Sally Hawkins), seems ordinary—until they meet their new “sibling,” Ollie (Jonah Wren Phillips, the film’s one true standout). Ollie’s presence immediately sets a queasy tone, and to the movie’s credit, his character delivers most of its rare moments of genuine discomfort and horror.
Unfortunately, the rest of Bring Her Back can’t sustain that same tension. The story spends far too much time meandering through scenes meant to be brooding or emotionally loaded but end up simply dull. It leans so hard on grief as a narrative crutch that it forgets to build characters we can care about beyond their trauma. It’s hard to invest in Andy and Piper’s arc when they’re mostly defined by a backstory instead of actual personalities.
What’s more frustrating is that the film seems convinced its slow burn and occasional bursts of gore qualify as substance. Like Talk to Me, this film introduces promising elements—like the creepy family dynamics and the unnerving presence of Ollie—only to abandon them in favor of the now-typical third-act descent into blood-soaked chaos. It’s horror filmmaking by checklist: trauma, symbolism, body horror, ambiguous ending. Wash, rinse, repeat.
While the visuals occasionally impress, and the Philippous show they can stage a good scare or two, Bring Her Back is more noise than meaning. The movie feels increasingly hollow the longer it goes on, weighed down by heavy-handed themes and characters that never evolve. The grief horror genre has become so overcrowded with similar beats that without something new to say or a fresh way to say it, the whole thing starts to feel perfunctory.
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Bring Her Back may satisfy diehard fans of A24-style horror or those looking for a few jarring images, but for most viewers, it will likely feel like an echo of better films. This is the kind of horror that thinks it’s elevated but forgets to be compelling. For the Philippous, it’s a clear step back—stylistic confidence without a story worth telling.
Score: 3/10
Bring Her Back (2025)
- Cast: Sally Hawkins, Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips
- Director: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
- Genre: Horror
- Runtime: 104 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: May 30, 2025
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